


head over creels

by Anonymous



Category: A3! (Video Game)
Genre: Bad Fashion, M/M, yuki chikage kazunari and banri's family also appear in some capacity
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-01-08
Updated: 2019-01-08
Packaged: 2019-10-06 17:02:56
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,293
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17349125
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/
Summary: On yet another one of his family trips to Hawaii, Banri finds himself slipping into a pair of rather unusual fashion trends.





	head over creels

**Author's Note:**

> firstly, i am so sorry.
> 
> secondly, various main/backstage/blog etc tidbits + a lot of (fond) poking at banri and tenma's fashion sense. i love them! i also want to burn some of their outfits. if this makes you uncomfortable, please don't read this fic.
> 
> thirdly, i tagged this banten and banri clearly has a massive crush on tenma, but they don't even kiss. they don't even kiss! once again, i am so sorry.
> 
> thank you to everyone who helped write this. you share the responsibility for bringing it into the world.
> 
> ADDENDUM: my friend made a discord server for a3! fic/art/creativity encouragement! do join if you'd like :) <https://discordapp.com/invite/QGqVycf>

Most days, Banri lives life on super ultra easy mode (hey! ♪), but sometimes, just sometimes, he thinks he might have to downgrade that description. Switch out the ‘ultra’ for something a bit less dated, maybe, or drop it altogether – for the minimalism, y’know? He’s more a fan of those vintage prints and patterns himself, but the simple aesthetic has its appeal too. He presses the phone closer to his ear, making sure his long sigh is captured in full by the microphone. “Hawaii _again_? I’ve been wanting to go to Cancún.”

“Since when?” his sister snorts. “We go to Hawaii every year.”

Banri sighs again, longer this time. “Yeah,” he says, “and it’s _boring_. You could finish Hawaii in a day, and we always go for at _least_ two weeks.”

“Some of us do actually work when we’re in Japan,” his sister tells him. “Real adults need to take leave to go and laze about the way you do all the time.”

“I’m a changed man,” Banri protests. “You can’t say that about me anymore.”

He blushes slightly at the genuine note that enters his voice – his sister can’t see it, but he knows from her soft huff that she’s heard it too. “Okay, big boy. If you’re so different now, maybe you’ll find something different to enjoy in Hawaii, too.”

“Wait, my point is that I don’t want to go to – ”

His sister hangs up on him.

 

👟

 

“I’ve been to Hawaii a couple of times before,” Tenma says, the same way one would talk about going to the shops. “I’ll have to check with Igawa, but my pa has contacts over there too, so it might be possible to write it off as a work expense if I can pick up a job there.”

Sometimes Banri forgets that Tenma was born into the industry and thus has a decent knowledge of things like tax deductions and, very occasionally, subtle tax evasion. He tells himself it’s easy to forget that sort of thing when Tenma spends his time stumbling over the English titles to video games or begging Tsumugi-san for help with simple arithmetic. It’s kind of…gap moe, in a way, when Banri thinks about it; Tenma carries the same kind of appeal Itaru-san gives off when he drops his elite persona along with his business jacket and flops onto the couch like a soggy potato.

Tenma stares at him when Banri says this. “I think all the gaming’s gone to your brain,” he says dubiously. “Actually, I can ask about it on your behalf too, if you want. You’ve done some modelling jobs before, right?”

“You were there for them,” Banri retorts, a tiny bit hurt. It’s not like he’s memorised Tenma’s entire work history either, but Tenma objectively has more to his name than Banri, and Banri still at least _tries_ to keep up with Tenma’s busy schedule. He doesn’t say this out loud, though. Tenma would probably stare at him harder, and the thought sounds a bit lame even to Banri’s own ears.

“Send me your CV,” Tenma says, “and the dates you’re going. I’d wanted to go to Cancún next, but…well, Hawaii’s not too bad either.”

See, this is why Banri likes Tenma. Next time, he’ll ditch his family and the two of them can have a _real_ holiday kicking up white sand by crystal-clear waters. It’d be nice, he thinks – the two of them are usually on the same wavelength, and even though Tenma’s the sorest loser Banri knows he’s also surprisingly keen to try new things.

He doesn’t want to admit his sister was right, but he thinks that with Tenma there, he really might find something different to enjoy in Hawaii.

 

👟

 

Unfortunately, it turns out that browsing the same stores still leads to roughly the same shopping experience. “It’s like being at home,” Banri complains, as they pass through UNIBRO without stopping to try on any of the shirts. “If I wanted boring I’d raid my dad’s closet.”

Tenma nods emphatically. “Even the selection is the same. We saw those jackets last week.”

Perhaps regular people would have given up by now. Banri wouldn’t know – he’s already been dubbed ‘annoyingly tenacious’ by Itaru-san, and both he and Tenma would interpret a suggestion to stop before they’d found a decent shop as a loss. “Wanna go look at shoes instead?”

“Shoe trends take longer to change,” Tenma protests, but he follows Banri obediently to Jimmy Yoo. They’ve got these kinda interesting SmartBoots™ that are supposed to warm your feet and count your steps, but as Banri points out, they’d be a pain to wash, and the battery inside makes them a potential fire hazard on top of that. Tenma still looks back at them longingly as they leave.

“Seriously,” Banri says, when Tenma’s expression becomes too puppyish to handle, “if you want them that badly, you can get them.”

Tenma considers this for a moment before shaking his head. “Nah. I trust your opinion.”

Hearing that makes Banri’s chest go all warm and fluttery; he has to fight the urge to do a victory pose while they’re still walking. He casts his gaze around for a distraction and finds himself squinting at an unusual shape in the display of a familiar store. He tugs Tenma’s sleeve. “Hey, let’s go there.”

“I take back what I just said,” Tenma announces immediately. “Crocs aren’t even last season anymore.”

“C’mon,” Banri wheedles. He doesn’t think he’s mistaken – if he’s right, Tenma is going to have to eat his own words. “We’re desperate.”

“ _You’re_ desperate, you mean.”

In spite of his reluctance, Tenma seems reasonably curious about what’s gotten into Banri all of a sudden. He snipes at Banri on the way over, but this only makes it easier for Banri to keep him preoccupied. Banri wants this to be a surprise, so he deliberately keeps his attention away from the storefront; he wants to see the understanding wash over Tenma’s face in real-time. When they’re almost there, he covers Tenma’s eyes and points his head in the direction of that incredible shoe.

“Oi, what are you – ”

“Look straight when I let go,” Banri murmurs against his hair. He’s closer than he needs to be, so he accidentally brushes the shell of Tenma’s ear when he speaks, but it’s no big deal. They’re friends, after all; there’s nothing wrong with a couple of accidental touches between friends.

Tenma shivers slightly under his touch. Banri lets go faster than Itaru-san leaves work on the days the KniRoun mobile game starts new events.

The look on Tenma’s face when he sees the new Crocs line-up is worth the mild discomfort in Banri’s chest. “No _way_ ,” he mutters, shoving Banri’s shoulder. “I didn’t see this on any of the websites.”

“That must be because those were all showing the Japanese collections,” Banri tells him. “D’you think this is going to come across next season?”

“Dunno.” Tenma’s already inside; he takes a shoe and holds it up to the light. “Check it out; this one actually glows.” To be more specific, the wheel attached to the bottom of the shoe glows – several different colours, in fact, and all of them extremely bright. Banri’s eyes hurt looking at them.

“I’ve never seen wheels on Crocs before, though,” he comments. “I’d love to know what brought this on.”

“Well, they were both pretty in a couple of seasons ago,” Tenma says. “Separately. Hey, which one should I get?”

Part of Tenma’s sudden eagerness to spend money is probably due to being thwarted with the SmartBoots™, but the majority of it is founded solely by how great these shoes are. Banri purses his lips, looking again over the line-up. “If it were me, I’d go straight for the leopard print, but I think it’s not quite right in your case.”

Tenma’s different, after all. Banri’s always liked dark colours – purple and black; they work well on him. But Tenma’s whole face lights up when he smiles. Everywhere he goes, people turn to look, as if they can sense the confidence he exudes, the glow of fame surrounding him. Banri could probably pull most things off, if he tried, but Tenma’s one step further still. Unbidden, he recalls the gravure shoot Tenma had posed for a couple of months back; he’d been put in everything from retro suits and casual streetwear to leather jackets and suspenders, but he’d looked good in every outfit. Tenma likes to subtly leave copies of the magazines he’s in on the table at the dorms, but Banri had gone to purchase a copy of this one for himself. He keeps it behind some of the other books in his room because he feels a kind of aversion to the thought of anyone else seeing it, particularly Hyodo. It’s hard trying to keep secrets under a shared roof; Misumi can get into just about anywhere. The other day he’d seen Banri’s screenshot collection of news articles on the troupe and had to be bribed with triangles to keep quiet about it. He wonders how many triangles it would cost him if Misumi knew what he was thinking now, watching Tenma bounce from one pair of shoes to the next.

“I can’t decide between the blue with white stripes and the yellow with orange edges,” Tenma complains. He tugs on Banri’s sleeve. “What do you think, Banri-san?”

Banri thinks that Tenma would look better with no shoes, and preferably no shirt, too. He swiftly quashes this thought. “The blue’s more formal, but why don’t you just get both? They’re still a better deal than the SmartBoots™.”

“The SmartBoots™ were pretty,” Tenma grumbles, but he takes both boxes. “Which ones are you getting?”

Banri tucks two boxes under his own arm. “Red leopard print and purple with black stripes,” he replies. It’s not as if he intends to match Tenma’s choice, but the purple would look nice against Tenma’s blue. It’s the same colour as Tenma’s eyes, too.

“These shoes are the same colour as your eyes,” says Tenma when they reach the register, pointing at the blue shoes he’s about to buy. Immediately, he blushes. “N-Not that that’s the reason I’m buying them or anything!”

Banri’s never gotten sunburnt in Hawaii before. There’s no other reason for his face to feel so hot, though, or for his palms to feel sweaty, his throat dry, his skin prickling. He’d had no idea that getting sunburnt could actually feel kind of nice.

 

👟

 

His mother tells him they’re planning on having dinner by the beach that night, at some famous place with an outdoor seating area. Banri doesn’t really care. He’s thinking about the plans he’s made with Tenma for after dinner – plans to break in the Crocs-with-wheels-and-heelies (Creelies™ for short). He’s so busy imagining the two of them circling slowly around each other on their new rides that he completely misses her spiel about his dad trying to get a deal and landing them in this sort of room instead. This is another thing Banri doesn’t care about. As long as Tenma is there, he doesn't mind being in a deluxe room in four seasons instead of his usual suite.

She looks surprised when he tells her so. “I thought you’d be the one complaining the most, after that ruckus with your sister about coming here again. Being in that theatre troupe has really changed you.”

She’s right, but that’s not the reason Banri’s coping so well with these changes specifically. He casts a glance over to the balcony, where Tenma is standing, staring out at the open beaches. The scenery is familiar, but not the view; it’s amazing how much of a difference one person can make.

Unlike his mother, Banri’s sister seems to have cottoned on to the real reason he’s so docile. She keeps trying to engage Tenma in conversation over dinner, and Tenma seems more than happy to reply to her. It’s not that Banri doesn’t get on well with his sister – the two of them tend to share reasonably similar interests – but he has things to talk to Tenma about too. Between his sister’s barrage of questions about Tenma’s future aspirations and how many children he wants, there’s no space for Banri to cut in and talk about more important things, like Tenma’s future aspirations for his friendship with Banri and how he feels about going stargazing together someday.

If Tenma’s eyes weren’t sparkling over all the steak they’re being served, Banri would have long since dragged him away to a quieter space so they could spend more quality time together. As it is, he’s just about reached the end of his patience by the time they finish their meal and split for the night.

Of course, Tenma is oblivious to Banri’s frustration. “Your family is really nice,” he says quietly. There’s an edge of wistfulness to his voice, and Banri remembers that Tenma knows what it’s like to come home to a dark house more often than not. The dorms are lively – sometimes _too_ noisy – but Tenma never looks wholly discontent when he asks to sleep in Banri’s room for the night. In Banri’s case, he’s glad for Tenma’s company, but he wonders whether sleeping in the same bed helps Tenma feel less lonely.

Suddenly he feels a bit bad for wanting to hurry Tenma away from his sister’s chatter and into the engulfing silence of the night. “Hey,” he says, just to break up the silence. “Wanna take these wheels for a spin?”

Tenma knocks against him, brushing his cheek against Banri’s shoulder. “That’s what we’re here for, isn’t it?”

“Hold on.” They’re far from the lights of the restaurant now. “Nobody’s here, so let me – ”

Just in case, Tenma had opted to wear one of Banri’s caps while at the restaurant. There’s no longer any need for It, so Banri slips it off, smoothing Tenma's hair back gently after. The evening breeze ruffles Tenma’s hair; the moonlight washes it in a pale glow. He’s photogenic even without a camera around. Banri burns the image into his eyes instead, sealing the moment away in his heart. They test their wheels on the pavement, rolling first one way, then the next. Banri tries a couple of cheap tricks, basking in the envious awe Tenma expresses. He thinks he’s got the hang of it, mostly.

Tenma, on the other hand, almost twists his ankle trying to make a U-turn. That then means he spends half an hour trying to perfect the art of turning sharply, an effort which Banri can tell is rapidly exhausting him. The next time Tenma passes him, Banri grabs his arm.

“What are you – ”

Banri stifles the cry by wrapping his arms around Tenma’s waist to steady him. “Don’t be stupid.” He kneels down and helps wrest the shoes from Tenma’s pink feet, dangling them by the straps as he stands again. He swings them around his finger a couple of times, smirking, then drops them to the ground in favour of taking hold of Tenma once more. “You’ve been wobbling on your feet for the past ten minutes,” he continues. “I know those Creelies™ are hurting you.”

Tenma feels solid in his arms, different from any of the girls he’s carried before; his skin radiates warmth like he’s absorbed all that good Hawaiian sunlight into his veins. Banri can’t help leaning over as he breathes in, catching a hint of the salt misted over Tenma’s hair from the ocean wind.

“These are just the beginning,” Banri murmurs into Tenma’s hair, and Tenma stills very suddenly. “We could make these better.”

Tenma is easy to steer, but he never gets boring, either. It’s something Banri has come to appreciate over the time they’ve had together. As expected, he gives up trying to do laps around Banri and latches onto the new conversation topic instead. “What do you mean?”

Months later, when Banri is being interviewed for Brogue, he’ll look back on this defining moment. “I hadn’t been sure of what I meant myself, until he asked me.” He’ll laugh, tipping his head back, an unfathomable warmth in his eyes. “But the seeds were there already. I think they’d been there ever since I saw those shoes in the shop window, the exact same shade of purple as his eyes.”

 

👟

 

“Itaru-san, I need your opinion.”

“Whatever you’re thinking,” Itaru says immediately, “it’s not worth it. Also, did you have to call? I was in the middle of a live.”

“This is important,” Banri says. “I can’t be bothered typing it all out over LIME.” More importantly, he doesn’t want to give Itaru the chance to screenshot anything, just in case he lets slip something he shouldn’t. He can’t rule out the possibility that Chikage is secretly recording this conversation either, but he can at least minimise his risk of constant humiliation this way.

“My rank is important too,” mutters Itaru sullenly, but he doesn’t hang up, so Banri takes that as permission to continue.

“I’m thinking of starting a new business venture.”

“I only whale for Lancelot,” Itaru says.

“Shut up, that’s not even worth trying to lie about. Anyway, you know how Tenma and I are in Hawaii right now? We saw these – get this – Crocs with heels _and_ wheels attached.”

Itaru makes a strangled sound. “…So?”

“I want to bring that to Japan. Tenma always looks great when he models stuff – he’s a pro, after all – but you wouldn’t believe how he looks in these. I really think this could be big.”

“It sounds like a great idea,” Itaru says, in a way that Banri would probably recognise as mocking if he weren’t still drunk on the sound of Tenma’s laughter in his ears. His voice shakes over the line. “I – _pfft_ – I think you should really go for it. Listen, I’m hanging up now. Tell me how it goes.”

Banri thinks he hears a faint shriek of _Senpaiiii, you’ve gotta hear th – !_ before the beep, but he might just be imagining things. He sends a picture to Yuki, too, and to Kazunari, for good measure. It helps to get an expert opinion on these sorts of things.

_What on earth are **those**?_ Yuki writes back into the chat.

Kazunari’s reply comes mere seconds after. _Settsa, that’s cray! Tenten’s slaying it!_

At least one of these responses is clearly positive, which is passable. Banri thinks he might know why Yuki still has reservations. He sends through the detailed materials list he’d coaxed out of the shop attendant.

_Well,_ writes Yuki, accompanied by a sticker of a cat pursing its lips, _the material seems genuine_.

_Right?_ Banri sends back a thumbs-up Kamekichi sticker. That makes 1/1 from a trusted companion and 2/2 from people who know what they’re talking about, a perfect approval rate of 100%. The next few weeks after they get back to Japan are a flurry of phone calls and meetings; Tenma gets whisked off to filming for another drama, but this turns out to be a blessing in disguise because Banri sure doesn’t want Tenma answering the door when the prototypes arrive for their custom Creelies™.

Itaru snorts. “Your custom couple creelies, you mean.”

“That word’s trademarked,” Banri tells him. “Besides, not everything in this collection has heels and wheels. That’s reserved for the premium line; the regular shoes have other nifty features instead.”

This makes Itaru perk up. “Can you program them to walk you automatically to the bath?”

“I keep telling you, SmartCrocs aren’t a thing.” Banri rolls his eyes. Itaru doesn’t understand the appeal of good vintage fashion; this is why Banri goes shopping with Yuki instead. Time with Itaru is reserved for beating him up (when possible, which is, regrettably, less often than Banri would like) and being forced out into the cold to buy iTones cards from the convenience store at night.

“Neither were Creelies™ until you decided to import them,” Itaru points out.

“Yeah, and SmartCrocs aren’t going to be a thing because they’re _stupid_ ,” retorts Banri. He feels this is a very mature and reasonable response to what Itaru has just said. “Hey, should I wear my faux-panther-fur jacket to dinner with Tenma on Friday or will that look like I’m trying too hard?”

“Personally,” Chikage drawls, rolling his chair over, “I think you should ditch the jacket. Less clothing to remove later.”

Banri nods thoughtfully. “It has been getting hot lately.”

“Do you see what I have to put up with?” Itaru says suddenly. He drops his controller onto his lap and swivels around to make faces at Chikage. “Can’t you use one of your cheat skills and wipe my memory or something?”

A shadow passes over Chikage’s face; for a single moment, the chill that settles over Banri’s heart sweeps any lingering daydreams of Tenma in nothing but Creelies™ and knee-high socks from his mind. Then the moment passes, and Chikage’s smile is as carefully blank as ever. “I have no idea what you’re talking about,” he says. “By the way, I hear Citron’s been talking about starting a clothing line of his own. I can’t tell you the details, but he has some very impressive contacts on the manufacturing side of things.”

Banri takes note.

 

👟

 

It’s possible that Tenma has been eating nothing but McBronalds during the filming for his new drama. He almost sobs with relief when Banri tells him they’ll be going to one of the fancier steakhouses downtown for dinner. “You don’t understand,” he says, as they wheel there on their matching Creelies™. “That director is practically addicted to McBronalds already, and then they went and offered to become a major sponsor for the drama…By the end of the filming I’d rather have had a month of the Director’s curry.”

Banri winces. “That’s rough. You can have real Kobe beef tonight though, no sweat.”

“You’re a lifesaver,” Tenma declares emphatically. He grips Banri’s shoulder, turning to face him, and Banri almost thinks he might – that he might kiss him, or something. Muku’s insistent shoujo manga recommendations must be getting to him.

Neither of them can drink, though Tenma looks longingly at the wine list before sliding it back across the table to the waiter. Banri is going to have to keep an eye on Tenma; he’s starting to show all the signs of a budding alcoholic. “It doesn’t taste _that_ good,” he says, unable to help himself. Sure enough, Tenma’s eyes go wide with shock and a small amount of jealous suspicion.

“How would you know?”

Banri shrugs, keeping his voice flippant. “I went for tastings when my class was on a school trip to Australia. You can catch hints of what they use in the red wine sauces and all for steaks, too.” He does sometimes crack into his parents’ cellar when they’re not looking, but he hasn’t done this in years. He rather prefers coffee anyway.

“Real wine has _got_ to taste different to steak sauce,” Tenma says dubiously. “Besides, I want to try sake and champagne.”

“I don’t think you’ll like them,” Banri tells him. “Most of that stuff’s pretty dry.” While this particular fact is something that Banri only knows from hearsay, his sources are reliable. Saying it with confidence has the added benefit of making Tenma’s eyes widen even further. That’s a look Banri could get drunk on without the need for alcohol at all.

After dinner, he pulls Tenma away and sits him down on a bench at a nearby park. The stars aren’t very visible from Tokyo, but the empty park seems almost magical against all the high-rise buildings they can see in the background. There he unzips his rucksack and takes out the shoes he’s poured his heart into these past few weeks. He lays them at Tenma’s feet like an offering.

Tenma squints at them. “What are these? I can’t see well in the dark.”

Banri takes out his phone and turns on the flashlight.

“Woah, that’s bright – _woah_.”

If Tenma’s reaction to seeing the Creelies™ in Hawaii was good, his reaction now is the stuff of Banri’s more private dreams. He puts a hand on Tenma’s cheek, dragging his thumb against Tenma’s bottom lip. “I’ve got two-hundred of these in production right now. We can start our own personal line.”

“Our own personal line,” Tenma whispers, awed. Their initials are pasted to each side in glittering silver blocks, their faces custom printed over the upper arch. There’s no way these won’t sell. “What did you call them?”

“I wanted to celebrate our bro-hood,” Banri whispers back. He has to lean in as he does, just to make sure Tenma can hear him properly. From this distance, he can even make out the dusty shadow of Tenma’s eyelashes quivering in the moonlight. “They’re Creelies™, but they’re ours, too. I want to call the regular line Brocs, but this design – I want to call them Broccoreelies™.”

“Broccoreelies™,” echoes Tenma. He smiles up at Banri – open, trusting – and Banri sees the future spreading out before them: the whole troupe in Brocs™, posing for Veludo TV. Him and Tenma starring in a cross-troupe play with Broccoreelies™ on their feet, sparkling in a way they’ve never been able to before. Their own theme song, listed at the top of the karaoke charts for them to sing during one of their all-night sessions. It’d be an anthem of sorts – to him, and to Tenma, and to the Broccoreelies™ that brought them together.

Tenma bites his lip. “What if…What happens when these go out of fashion?”

Banri can’t help himself; he laughs, long and hard, stopping only when Tenma starts to splutter indignantly. “Tenma,” he says, patient and fond, “some styles are timeless.”

**Author's Note:**

> (THIS WAS SUPPOSED TO FIT IN THE MAIN FIC SOMEWHERE BUT I RAN OUT OF ENERGY)
> 
>  
> 
> _Months Later_
> 
>  
> 
> Tenma appears in Brogue dressed in bright purple fur, Brocs™ on his feet and matching mittens over his hands. He’s in the kids’ section, for some reason – there must have been a mix-up during the editing process – but Banri’s breath still catches at the sight. His treacherous brain imagines Tenma without the fur, without all the needless extras – just Tenma and their Brocs™, baring his teeth in a faux growl while his eyes shine with joy.
> 
> He’s never been happier.


End file.
